over? I've never heard anybody say that before, on here at least. I was looking for squish btwn .050 and .025 both are the extremes i would accept. have I been misguided?

 

My pistons are .009" OUT of the hole too. Using a .037" gasket for .028" quench. They just slightly *polish* things!

I don't see a lot of need to order custom pistons. There are plenty of shelf ones out there. Just get what you plan to use and deck block to fit them.

I do it that way because there are always tolerance stack ups and a couple of .000's just drives me nuts sometimes!

JIM

 

It doesn't work this way.

The machine shop is asking to "square" the block - to make the decks parallel in all respects to the crank centerline. This is good practice for high-performance engines at ensures the bores are consistent.

Decking the block to establish a particular deck height works from the rotating assembly outward - the shop will typically mock-up a hole or two after the block is square and determine the appropriate cut based on heads, head gasket, mfgr's spec for rod stretch, desired CR, quench etc.

Making the block fit the rotating ***'y is standard machine work. Making a rotating ***'y fit the block can get very expen$ive.

 

It depends what your looking for, All blocks should be aleast squared decked if the shop is boring off the decks and if your looking for zero deck is stroke devided by 2 add rod lenth and compression hieght of piston will give you zero deck. That will save a lot of time mocking up a block which cost time and money.

So far we have never had to mock a block up yet!!!!!

 

If it ran OK for so many decades and possibly hundreds of thousands of miles, why does it 'need' to be decked now?

As others have said, if this is the original block, you can kiss the stamp pad info goodbye.

 

A good machinist can save the numbers. My 454 was horribly out of square. The right front corner was 19 thou high and the left REAR corner 18 thou high. That made for a bad fit of the intake (had to run thick, soft, gaskets to make it seal) and a compression ratio that varied by cylinder.

The machinist put one piston in each corner, measured and decked it so the pistons are 5 thou down. That gives me good quench (0.045") while still leaving room for a cleanup pass or two in the future.

 

If you want your cylinders bored to an usquared deck go for it and GM does not bore off the decks but off the pan rails and its a lot closer then boring off the decks.

Boring off an unsquared deck on a performance build I consider a hack job as we have seen tomany of them over the years.

There are shops that can deck the block with out cutting off the stamp pad as I munst not be the only one.

Or there are shops tha bore off the main line instead of the decks.

A good shop with good equipment and measuring equipment should not have to fit up a rotator, There are a lot of budget shops that don't really do performance work but basicly deal with bone stock engines to rebuild.

 

A good shop will "measure twice, cut once" which includes doing a mock-up - sometime several - throughout the build and assembly process.

 

39 years building engines now and machining blocks and I send stuff all over the world and no problems yet.

If I had to mock every build to figure out what need to come off the decks I the customer would go find another shop and I would have to shut the doors.

I can tell you this I deal with a lot of shops and they never have to mock up a rotator.

WOW this is 2009 and guys are fitting up rotators, With the measuring equipment and machinery out their today fitting up a rotator would be a waste of time for a good shop

If a shop is fitting up stuff they are wasting good money and time because they don't have good equipment to work with thats for sure. And the customer has to pay for it in the end as no one works for nothing.

Maybe I should charge customers to mock up their rotator so I can charge them 70 dollars an hour for that service, But I am sure once guys figured out I had to do that I would have to shut the doors.

Dart has one of the biggest engine shops in the world and there finish machine comes from the same company as mine and they don't fit up rotators either but Give Richard Maskins owner of Dart a call and tell him he don't know what he is doing and see how far you get.

Again this 2009

 

I work with a number of Level 4 shops and they don't hesitate to mock up when required to be sure something's right on a $15K+ engine. An hour or so of shop time during initial set-up is cheap compared to the cost of finding a problem in final assembly - or after. But I guess everyone has different quality and care standards.

As for Dart, there is a significiant difference between building a production engine like their SHP shorblocks, especially precision aftermarket blocks, and working with a custom engine built on a factory block.

But hey, this isn't about you in the end - you don't even own a Corvette and you're not a board vendor, right?

 

Dart builds alot of custom engines at there shop as you can order a block with any deck height, bore, stroke ETC. and pick what block you want as they have a lot to offer.

After going to the Pri show I have had a lot of calls from other engine builders and shops this morning and the I asked a few about mocking up a rotator before decking, So far I have not had one of them say they needed to mock one up yet. and asked why, I said I would send this link.

If your only working with a number of level 4 shops you should go to a level 10 shop.

I have owned a Vette before but I work on quite a few vette engines like some of the others here that post, It seems like I am always fixing some one elses screw up because of a substandard machine shop screwed tring to doing BUDGET BUILDS.

I have been gone for 6 days at the Pri show and my PM box is 100 full as I am sure some needs some advise on something.

Here are a few links from Jackfit

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c1-a...blem-saga.html

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c1-a...ga-update.html

Level 4 machine shop HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

 

Hey, take it easy there. Carl is a great contributor to this and many other forums I frequent. He always gives great advice to people and is well respected on any forum I have seen him on. We have already lost enough of these types by pissing them off, so let's be a little more friendly and take the advice of someone that obviously does high quality work, and does it every day. Go over to speedtalk.com and see what they say about Carl. And I surely don't care if he is a supporting vendor or not, good information is good information.

 

Carl is consistently belittling and nasty on this forum, denigrating people and shops everywhere.

I'd point your advice back to Carl - I think his obvious expertise would be a little better accepted if he followed the guidance you're offering.

 

I'm sure most good engine builder would make sure they know what they are dealing with, like exact deck height, everything square, piston specs and compressed gasket thickness etc etc

Once you do all the math your "mockup" is when you are putting it together. If you know what you are doing it should not have to be torn down and more machine work done although this is probably done occasionally. I have a level 11 shop in my basement

 

I see it's all the usual suspects chiming in By all means, take whatever approach you see fit to make sure the engine goes together right.

I spend an extra hour or two making sure and I'm glad that I work with shops that do. If someone else doesn't want to, and doesn't feel their shop needs to, that's their choice and it's all good

 

Whatever turns your crank as they say

I agree do whatever you feel comfortable with

Actually to tell you the truth my 427ci was mocked up in my basement and then I had to take the block back to the machine shop for final machining. This was just to ensure the calculations were correct because it was a very expensive piece. Thing is I had all the time in world, jeese takes me an hour or two just to set cam end play

Shop trying to make a buck sometimes can't afford to do this plus they have much more experience than I do.

 

I don't belittle no one and I offer good advise on building a good sound engine and I don't beleive in building a budget build that most have to be gone over and your the only guy know that does not beleive in plate honing (remember that thread if not I can find it) and just ask Jackfit how much of a differance that made on his engine.

There are to many guys that have problem here with newly built engines knocking,lLow oil pressure issues, broken cranks, spun bearings, vibration issues, oil usage, blowby issues, high leak down tests ETC. All because things are not done right or over looked.

I post on drag sites and no drag car
Chevelle site and no chevelle
Camaro site no Camaro
Nove site no Nova
Impala site no Impala
Stock car site no stock car

Although I have ownd one at one time wahts your point here as you don't need to own a Covette to post here although I owned one at one time.

Thanks for your post as there are others like you but only call and email.

Again thanks Carl Hinkson

 

Carl, I encourage you to look at your posts. I don't need to repost them here, but I will if you like to see how consistently nasty you are.

I think you do offer some good advice - but you talk in absolutes and you make people think you're the only shop that does quality work. You're not - not even close.

No, you don't believe in a budget build - but budget builds are part of the engine building universe - not everyone has $10K for a build. And the idea that a budget build is less durable is just I have probably around 50-75 builds that I did that were under $3500 that are still on the road and running great.

We don't need to raise the torque plate issue again. Anyone that was on that thread knows that I DO believe in torque-plates - but you were posting that engines can't be built without them...which we know isn't true simply due to the millions of engines that left the factory and ran for millions of miles without them.

Finally, and I mean finally, there sure are bad shops out there. I ran into one locally (anyone in Seattle can send me a note and I'll let you know who), and it happens. But there are also a lot of great shops out there other than yours.

So go have a and relax - and maybe take a more positive look at your participation in this forum...and elsewhere.

 

Christ guys, I leave you alone for 12 hours while I go to work and this is what happens?!

Personally, I'm upset that some of you have different ideas about building an engine than others. How dare you all not think exactly alike!

Just try to stick to the topic and supporting arguments and leave the personal assaults out of it. There are other venues for tearing each other new ones, like hockey games, or dive bars.

If anyones interested, I've decided to go with 1.126" CH pistons, 6" rods, and have the deck SQUARED (not decked any more than what it needs to be correct at all corners), have my pistons stick out of the bores a little, and use a .042" compressed height MLS gasket. I feel pretty good about this combo.

 

With that rod and C/H zero deck should be 9.000 if your using a 3.480 stroke and to clean the decks on an average you may only end up at 9.015 hopefully.